The world seems to be too full of advice about what leaders are. Frankly, as a leadership coach, mentor, and all around expounder, I too am too full of advice about what great leaders are. For instance, check out my piece on my leadership maxim: “Leaders Relate.”

This time, though, I am going to declaim on what leaders are not, particularly when they have the title of boss.

Way back in the 1900s, when I was but a tyke, I used to marvel that a head of broccoli looked like a little tree. Then I noticed that each stalk of that head was like the whole head in miniature and that each floret at the end of a stalk was like the stalk itself. From there I imagined each bud that composed the floret was itself like the floret that was like the stalk that was like the bunch that was like a tree. I wondered then if each bud would have its own stalks, florets, and buds. About this time my revery would be broken by my parents.

“Jimmy! Stop picking at your food.”

I must confess that I had similarly incisive commentary to offer on cauliflower.

A friend of mine is a cop who used to teach in a big city training academy. My friend has a sharp intelligence and restless mind along with the persistent temerity that often accompanies those qualities. This combination allows him to see and understand what others might overlook or willfully ignore. He also suffers from a sizable sense of integrity. As a police instructor, he sometimes expressed frustration at the curriculum. I have reviewed several curricula of police training academies in my past life as a dean overseeing Criminal Justice departments, and I must say I was underwhelmed from a pedagogical standpoint. They were too long on specifics and too short on perspective. My friend’s misgivings were certainly warranted.

A lot of readers might not know this, but for years I was in a cult.

With the perspective of time I can now see it clearly. How could I have been so easily duped? This cult was so subversive that its own leadership, which was diffuse, was largely not aware that it was heading a cult. Leaders, in fact, often suffered the most from the cult’s abusive practices, which, as true believers, they still endorsed. Anyone who openly resisted this cult was threatened with ostracism and destitution, to be cast out from the fellowship and to fend for themselves in the outside world. It was a pretty bleak cult, and it is hard now from this distance to understand its allure.

I struggle to express how reluctant I am to start with a trigger warning, which I find potentially infantilizing and insulting to my audience. Still, since my audience is wide and general, I offer it in the spirit of broad acceptance. As an English professor, though, I simply will not censor a poem.

Let me be clear at the outset. Leaders should be approachable, friendly even, genuinely warm, unfailingly polite, supportive, protective, driven by integrity, and collaborative. In other words, just plain decent people who lead by building good relationships. Leaders should be nice individuals who lead by supporting their followers, but that is not enough.

What leaders should never be is distant, surly, cold, rude, untrustworthy, undependable, corruptible, and self-centered. In other words, just plain a******s who lead by making it all about themselves.

Recently I watched yet another disturbing video in the inexhaustible (and exhausting) internet subgenre of someone-bullying-a-public-servant-over-rules-they-don’t-like. The story starts with a man and his daughter trying to enter a library only to be stopped by a librarian for not wearing a mask as required by public health policies. The video, taken by the man, shows the exchange between the librarian, who is a tiny, gray-haired woman with a spine of steel, and the man, who appears much taller given the downward angle of his camera. We never see this valiant videographer or his kid.

Picture this scene.

You walk into a local fast-food chain franchise for lunch. You know, the one in which the burger is king. The teenaged automaton behind the counter mechanically asks what you will have. On the menu board you see there is a new item listed: the IllusoryBurger™️. You are trying to watch your weight, and this IllusoryBurger™️ is advertised with surprisingly few calories. So, in the spirit of culinary adventurism, you announce boldly, “I wanna try that new IllusoryBurger™️.”

A while back I wrote about imposter syndrome and how, when allowed to run rampant, it can hinder progress and encourage bad behaviors. As pervasive and damaging as it is, though, imposter syndrome is not nearly as insidious and debilitating as self-doubt, which can rapidly harden into regressive and persistent habit.

Since then, I have embarked on an ambitious journey to make a quantum leap, an exponential advance in my development as a person and as a professional. These essays I publish every week are a small part of that effort.

Lately, though, I have been plagued with self-doubt. How could I, little ol’ me, do anything of great value?

Decades ago, my wife was a social worker advocating for nursing home residents. One resident she got to know well was Mr. Foley, who took a liking to this vibrant, pretty, young professional, who in turn found him to be wise and kindly. At some point in their acquaintance, he told her his life’s tale, which had all the makings of an O. Henry story. His experience would subsequently impact the life she and I have led.